Monday, June 7, 2010

It's got NOTHING on trying to Shiv a single red bug in a tangle of 30-40 other bugs to de-enrage it, with all the name plates moving around and every click falling on some other, un-enraged bug that just got in the way. >_>

How we did it:

(10-man, btw)

The Bug Group:

Paladin tank (prot spec) in nature resist gear, standing on a thick pile of frost at the south end of the room, taunting and healing herself like crazy with righteous fury active. More details for the pally at the bottom of the post.

Two healers spamming on her; if they have no threat dump, I suggest trying to stay out of the way so the tank can see when they have bug aggro. We also suggest priest and paladin for these roles due to fade (threat dump) and low threat.

Rogue amidst the chaos using shiv to apply anesthetic poison to enraged bugs, and trying not to die or get too many stacks of bugbites (acid-drenched mandibles). More on that below.

Everyone else:

Stick in the north end of the room as much as possible during bug-spawns (kite phase).

The rest of the raid deal with killing burrowers (one tank picking them up), tanking Anub (another tank), one healer keeping an eye on all of them, and dropping more frost patches.

Anub-kites must be taken to frost patches AWAY from the paladin tank; reserve those frost patches for when the bug group gets their own anub-marks.

All bug aggro must be kited through frost patches to the pally tank; with most of the raid at the north end, the bug spawns typically came to the south-end group anyway.

Keep 4 or more frost patches dropped on the bug group, as they will get used up as Anub tries to persue anyone of the bug group. Drop these during the normal phase when Anub is up and not burrowing underground, as little bugs do not spawn in this phase.

ROGUE:

If you're the rogue, I seriously suggest turning off nameplates. It's easier to target the big red adds without having to sift through a zillion nameplates.

Anesthetic Poison on Offhand

Crippling Poison on Mainhand (helps slow some that try to escape)

Use Shiv to apply anesthetic to any giant red bugs beating up your pally tank, but prioritize any big red bugs that are escaping her to beat on someone else. The tank can handle a few enraged beating on her for a bit, better than a dps or healer can.

Avoid using Fan of Knives to apply the poisons; the poison proc is not guaranteed, and the fan will do a lot of damage to adds you want to keep alive for nearly 4 full submerge phases.

Use CoS to drop stacks of bugbites when they get above 7 or so; you may only get two uses of it in the course of the fight so choose well when you decide to use it.

Use Vanish midway through the 3rd submerge to dump the aggro you've been building, or all the bugs will eat you.

ToT is unreliable here. Don't attempt to use it to put a loose add on the tank; a taunt is needed.

PALADIN:

A prot pally works best as the bug tank for this achievement due to their unique mix of plate (better NR gear available), tanking, and healing with righteous fury.

"I used old gear with the most defense I could find to give me 525 Defense to be un-critable to those level 80 mobs. (Note 540 is for level 83 boss mobs)

I re-gemmed and enchanted whatever old gear I used (Shield/Shoulder/Hands/Cloak) to add more +Def or in the case of the hands a nature resist kit.

With all of that and a nature resist totem or Aura I was at 430 Resist. 20 Over what is required so you can skip the two nature kits, HOWEVER ... I kept them because a 30 yard Aura might go out of range from a hunter, OR a totem might fall off during a kite.The hunter's aura for us was NOT up 100% of the time when he was kiting, so this was helpful for us. 20 extra resist is better then none, as by the end your add tank is taking a tonne of damage in spikes.

I used Consecration rank 2 to try to help keep adds on me without killing them. I also healed when both of my taunts were on cool down to get healing threat."

On a semi-related note, during the course of farming for resist gear we used on the bug-tank:

I used old gear with the most defense I could find to give me 525 Defense to be un-critable to those level 80 mobs. (Note 540 is for level 83 boss mobs)

I re-gemmed and enchanted whatever old gear I used (Shield/Shoulder/Hands/Cloak) to add more +Def or in the case of the hands a nature resist kit.

With all of that and a nature resist totem or Aura I was at 430 Resist. 20 Over what is required so you can skip the two nature kits, HOWEVER ... I kept them because a 30 yard Aura might go out of range from a hunter, OR a totem might fall off during a kite. The hunter's aura for us was NOT up 100% of the time when he was kiting, so this was helpful for us. 20 extra resist is better then none, as by the end your add tank is taking a tonne of damage in spikes.

I used Concecrate rank 2 to try to help keep adds on me without killing them. I also healed when both of my taunts were on cool down to get healing threat.

I recommend a priest or paladin for primary heals on the add tank because a priest can fade to drop some threat, and a pally has little threat when healing.

The priest stood right on top of me on the ice patches so if she got perused she wouldn't get killed. Make sure you drop ALOT of ice around the add tank (4+ so even if 1 or 3 ice patches get used, there are plenty more up during the chaos of the submerge.

Drop more ice when Anub is up to replenish any that were used.

Even through all of this, the bugs were leaving me due to agro on others, Your tank will be taunting EVERY COOLDOWN just to keep up, and even then bugs were getting loose, and there was nothing I could do about it. Just be patient, and put soulstones on people with a lot of stacks and let people die with a lot, and brez them to relieve the pressure on the healers.